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When you come to live in Amsterdam you soon copy the natives, and make sure your bicycle doesn't get nicked. One tactic for this is to use good locks, another is to ride around on a bike that is just too unattractive to steal, and you don't really care about.

But when you don't care about your ride, you don't care that much either when it breaks down. Especially since repairing it or taking it to the municipal waste yard costs more money than getting another wreck.

I met up with a dutch friend when I went to Amsterdam last year. He explained that bike theft is a problem, so most people tend to ride old, cheap bikes (often custom-painted so you can identify yours in a bike rack). That way, it's 'just another bike' so there's no reason for someone to steal yours over anyone elses. Apparently expensive-looking bikes don't stay yours for very long.

I'm looking a little closer and I don't see any department store bikes like Huffy or Magna. Those look like bike shop bikes! Those bikes in the picture would each fetch $100.00 USD here in New York City provided they were working.